


After

by elena_stidham



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Investigations, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Originally Known As Dead Aim Alchemist, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Roy Mustang, Post-Canon, Post-Promised Day, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: Even when a story ends, it is not over. Even when something is over, something always comes after. Even when they save the world, there's no instruction manual for what comes next.





	1. Readjustments

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, elements of PTSD  
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: Various Undertale music box covers depending on the mood, bits of the FMA/FMAB soundtrack, and ASMR behind some of that, plus my professors lecturing me as I completely ignore what I’m being taught  
> Hi! A couple of things before you get started. This is a rewrite of a fic I wrote (and didn’t finish) years ago called “Dead Aim Alchemist.” It was on fanfiction.net, and it was terrible. I ended up dropping it after a lack of a following, but I actually got a few comments a little bit ago on the original fic asking me to bring it back. It surprised me, but it got me really thinking about it. Second, I have literally no idea how I’m ending this fic. It’s almost a complete rewrite, of the original, and I’m trying to make this work for my current style of writing as well as keep a healthy balance of the old and new characters. I know for a lot of people fics heavy with OCs are really cringy and tend not to work well, and my original draft of this was definitely one of those examples. That being said, I’ve also read my fair share of fics where the OCs are done so well and it feels so right that I actually have to remind myself they aren’t in the shared universe. I want this fic to be like that. I know for a lot of you original followers of the OG Dead Aim Alchemist didn’t think Isabelle was a complete Mary Sue, and that it was well written, but the thing is, I was so unsatisfied with my work. Especially with the lack of a response, it just didn’t help, you know? I hope that this rewrite ends up being better, and that I end up being happier with the material in the end. I hope you like this better, too. For those of you that weren’t followers of OG Dead Aim Alchemist and only know this fic as “After,” congrats! I hope you like this story of mine. That being said, thank you all, new and old, so much for reading this and I hope you enjoy it.  
> -Elena

Within the timespan of three weeks Edward had sent his pocket watch directly to General Mustang’s doorstep with no other letter attached. The box arrived half soaked with rain, dented on one corner’s end, and the address scribbled in ink was caught somewhere in the mix between rushed and delicately relieved.

His name is not Fullmetal anymore.

It’s the last piece of hell out of his life – and it was right at that moment, with a stamp marked into paper, that he knew it was all finally over. There was a newness to begin here, merely a simple step in an otherwise endlessly leaping life.

There’s a certain kind of whiplash that comes with going back to Resembool, the kind that takes an adjustment but is still a fairly smooth transition. Sometimes this transition may take a few hours. Sometimes it takes weeks. It’s been two years, and Edward Elric is still not used to this quiet life.

The ring around his finger now brings some grounding weight to remind him where he is, but that doesn’t help the shock that he’s even wearing a ring at all. He knows of domestic life, he understands domestic life, hell, he’s _lived_ a domestic life for some time, but he wasn’t at all _used_ to domestic life. It was just _there,_ and _he_ was there, and he had to learn to live within it.

After all, all learning comes with a curve.

Sometimes Alphonse visits, and Ed learns that he isn’t the only one feeling this way. However, in the younger brother’s case, it was hitting him a little harder. When Alphonse wakes up to silence every other night, his brother would walk in with a heart full of worry.

“I mean, it’s nothing to be worried about,” Al had chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just that I’ve got a lot of nightmares to catch up on.”

Quiet life is its own kind of miserable, but it’s its own kind of joy. It’s unlike other times when he came and he was aware that he was only here for a visit – this time it’s permanent, home or not, it didn’t quite feel like home without Alphonse always around. It’s the part of growing up he was never told about: the part where everybody goes away.

There’re the weekly phone calls, monthly care packages, and letters nearly every goddamn day, and that still doesn’t replace the awkward hollowness in his chest that only can be filled when his brother is in the scene. Awkward. That’s a good word to describe it. Quiet life is _awkward._

It’s not always miserable, though. Despite the constant homesickness gnawing away, he’s got a little piece of home in his life that numbs it. A piece of home in the body of a woman. A wife. A wife with blonde hair and piercings in each ear and is an absolute gearhead for a living.

“Ed,” she speaks.

“Right here,” he repeats, quietly, only loud enough for the two of them to hear. He reaches a hand over, patting gently on the comforter as he shifts in their mattress. “I’m right here.”

It takes him a minute before he realises that she’s asleep. Winry’s not the type to talk unconscious, nor is she the type to have nightmares. But as all humans, there’s the occasional day of exception.

Her eyes snap open with a sharp inhale as she’s startled awake, her lungs trembling to push out air as her vision starts to focus. “Ed,” she says, her voice raspier now. He pulls her in and doesn’t bother to ask. He knows that she’d tell him someday, in time, when she’s ready.

“You were sick,” Winry says. “Like how your mom was.”

Or, now.

It’s the only time she has a nightmare like this. Edward had brought her ear to his chest where his heart was, and she closed her eyes and listened – and it was still beating. It was the only kind of reassurance she’d need.

At least, with the quiet life, there was a bit of training from childhood. With married life? That’s an everyday exam he only halfway studied for. It’s simultaneously one of the greatest and most difficult parts of his life that he was constantly facing, but he wouldn’t trade her for the world. He wouldn’t trade her for anything at all.

For a short while after this, everything sails fine. But when Alphonse wakes up to the phone ringing on a sweltering July morning in Xing, that’s when he realises they’re going to hit an iceberg. This iceberg remained in the unknown.

“Brother? Isn’t it like four in the morning in Resembool? What’s going on?”

“It’s Winry,” Ed tells him, half choking on a sob as he tries to speak clearly into the mic. “She’s sick. It’s getting worse. It’s been almost three weeks.”

There’s a silence on the other end. Faintly, Edward can hear music and celebrations distantly on the other end of the line. July. That’s right, mid-year festivals. For a moment, the brothers can almost see the look of fear on each other’s faces.

“She’s refusing to see somebody,” he continues. “She says she has a hunch but won’t tell me what it is. She wants to know for sure. But she just – she just can’t _do_ that! I’m her husband, damn it, I should know these things! What if she’ll know for sure when it’s too late, Al? What if this kills her?”

Al swallows hard. “Is it the same kind that Mom had?”

Ed shakes his head, despite knowing that he couldn’t be seen. “She’s throwing up a lot. Mom didn’t do that. Mom fainted, too. Winry hasn’t fainted—”

“—But didn’t the doctor say that Mom was hiding it for a while?”

It takes a moment. Al almost has to repeat himself, or ask if he’s even still there, but instead, he hears his brother just break. His crying is quiet and muffled, as if he’s trying to hold it in, to keep quiet for Winry’s sake.

“I don’t know what to do, Al! She’s missed her period and she’s throwing up every morning and she’s burning up every night,” he pauses to shake in a wheeze. “I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her.”

“Ed, please, you need to talk to her about this. You know how she is. She wouldn’t want you to be this worried,” Alphonse takes a deep breath, expecting his brother to imitate. He doesn’t. He sighs. “But I’m going to be honest here, based on what you just said, I don’t think she’s sick.”

“What is she, then?”

“She’s probably—” he stops, remembering the countless books he’s read while in that suit of armour. In that same moment, May steps around the corner, a concerned look on her face. He inhales deeply. “I think she’d prefer to tell you. I gotta go. Keep me updated.”

Edward Elric does not sleep that night.

He stays at the kitchen table for hours, head propped up on his knuckles, staring down at the wooden surface as trembling fingers trace out memories of transmutation circles as if it would calm his mind. He doesn’t notice that his wife doesn’t vomit for the first time in three weeks, he doesn’t even hear her come near. He doesn’t bother to look up and recognise her, not until she brings her fingers down and intertwines them between his own to stop the fictional alchemy in his mind.

“You’re overthinking something again,” Winry’s voice is tired, but warm. Her fingers are cold, but the lips to his temple are about room temperature. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head, the last thing he wants is for her to see him panic over something she’s unbelievably calm about. He has to trust her, after all, and if she says she’s okay, he should believe her. But at the same time, he’s running out of options. She takes a deep breath and lets go before she strides towards the overhead cabinets to grab some plates for breakfast this morning. “So, Ed, I was thinking that we should convert the guest bedroom.”

Ed turns his head some, not peeling his temple away from the knuckles it’s slept on throughout the night. “Why?”

She smiles again, soft and calm, before she takes a deep breath and walks back to him and gently takes his hand from the imaginary transmutation circle it made. She brings it to her abdomen, then she waits. “Because I think,” she sat on this information for about a week now, unsure how to break the news. She shakes her head, scratching away her previous sentence start. “Because somebody else is going to need it.”

It takes Ed exactly fifteen seconds before everything clicks – before he realises, she’s been expecting all along.

“You’re—?”

Winry smiles. She nods.

“Are you serious?” Ed asks again, this time slowly standing from the chair, eyes clouding with mist as the look of fear on his face brightens to a look of pure joy instead. She just laughs, nodding again, but this time it finally seems to completely sink in.

When Alphonse wakes up on a brisk March morning in Xing to his brother knocking at his front door, he learns very quickly that this iceberg nine months ago is very simply a pair of golden eyes and a tiny heartbeat. 

 

* * *

 

It’s about a year into Marcus’s childhood when Edward suggests that they have another. Winry quickly brushed it off, saying it’s too soon, too early, too fill in the blank excuse to say that they just weren’t ready yet. However, she did agree that their son should have at least someone. It was just a matter of when. It was just a matter of getting ready.  

Financially, they were set. With Edward Elric being an infamous veteran and they started growing an orchard outside money wasn't really an issue. 

Within the timespan of six weeks another nursery is built just next door of Marcus’s current bedroom, somewhere where the siblings could be close yet maintain their own privacy. Within the timespan of six weeks, Marcus finally started speaking. A late bloomer, it seems. A lot like Alphonse.

Just as Marcus was pushing three, he waddled up to his father, carefully tugged at his sleeve, and said, “I want to build like Mommy, please.”

Winry was absolutely _thrilled,_ much to Ed’s dismay.

But he was supportive, giving his son little tinker toys and other objects that allow him to build as he’d play, all without hurting himself. Marcus seemed to have a knack for puzzles and figuring out machinery – a grease monkey, Winry called him. “He’s gonna be a gifted mechanic if he keeps this up.”

Edward watches him one day, noticing the little things he’d build with his blocks and the toys he’d crate out of random spare parts he was given. Most children would stick these parts in their mouths, but here he was, using them to create. It’s a slower form of alchemy, in a way. Taking something and using it to make something else. But instead of focusing on the elements and conversions and all other forms of science behind equivalent exchange, this focus took an art form that alchemy couldn’t replicate.

“You know buddy,” Ed says, watching the toddler’s eyes widen when they faced each other. He grins softly, wanting to protect the innocence behind his eyes for the rest of his life. “If you want to when you get older, you can be an apprentice for Mommy.”

“What’s an apprentice?” Marcus asks, blinking twice.

“It’s where you work for someone that’s an expert and they teach you what they do,” He explains carefully. “So, if you’d like, Mommy can teach you how to build Automail just like her.”

The child gasps, bouncing up onto his feet and jumping in excitement. “Yes, yes, Daddy!” He squeaks. “I wanna build Automail just like Mommy!” He keeps jumping, and all Daddy can do to reciprocate is just chuckle as he starts to stand and bounce with him too.

“Why are we jumping, buddy? Are we excited?” He laughs.

“Yes, yes!” Marcus squeaks again, jumping over and leaping into his father’s arms. “I’m gonna be a builder! I’m gonna build Automail just like Mommy!”

“Just like Mommy,” he echoes, grinning ear to ear. “My little grease monkey. Come on, let’s go tell her what you’re gonna be.”

That particular night in January was cold. Very cold. And it just so happens that Winry naturally runs frigid during the winter. She curls against Edward for warmth, whining at the shriek that emits from her husband.

“What the _hell_ woman!” Ed chuckles fake offendedly as he turns to face her. “Don’t _do_ that _._ ”

“Sorry,” She giggles nervously. “I remember reading about how for women, blood mostly circulates towards vital organs, and that’s why extremities are always so cold.”

“That must be true,” he thinks, pulling her close, shuddering. “You’re freezing.” He pauses for a moment, noticing how she’s still shivering, then he sighs. He sits up and peels away the covers. “Get up,” he tells her as he starts to take his pants off. She obeys, confused, then lets out a shriek when he reaches over and starts to take off her clothes. “Relax,” he says simply, before they’re wearing practically nothing as he pulls the blanket over them once more, holding her just a little tighter. “Skin to skin. It’s the best way to stay warm.”

Winry’s face is beet red, holding in an inhale as she hums softly in acknowledgement. That wasn’t at all what she was expecting. “A-ah, that’s all.”

Ed opens his eyes, raising an eyebrow at her. “All?” He notices her face. “What’s with your face—” he pauses, then he smirks and chuckles. “Oh, that’s it. You’ve got a bit of a dirty mind, don’t you Winry?” he laughs at her face plummeting to a deeper shade of red. “Well, I guess that works too.”

“Shut up.”

It’s all he can do to not just burst into laughter, but instead he continues to tease as he slides his hands down her back and relishes the goose bumps, he feels pop from her skin. His mouth falls dry. He presses his tongue between his lips. Their eyes lock.

“I mean—” he begins.

“— _Please,_ ” she finishes.

They fall asleep warm that night.

Two weeks into the month of February Winry’s vomiting again. This time, Edward isn’t as worried. He has a hunch, just as she does, and he waits for the reveal when she walks back inside from their orchard that morning.

“My period’s late,” she says.

“Are we having another?” he asks, his voice warm and smooth as his eyes swell with hearts. She smiles and shrugs.

“I guess so.”

A few weeks later in March Marcus wakes up to his third birthday. His parents give him an Automail starter kit, typically given to children around the age of nine, but their son has already shown time and time again that he’s got a gift of tinkering on his own. It’s always simple for first time novices, a finger or a toe, but he was given a hand too, ready for when he finishes his practice sets.

There was one more gift to share that night. One that would last a little longer than a simple six weeks. After the cake and the phone call greetings from his aunt and uncle, Marcus was sat down in the living room, about to be told some very exciting news.

“So, buddy, you remember when you told me that you wanted to be a big brother?” Ed asks. The child smiles brightly, nodding as he bounces up and down in place. It’s more a habit for him at this rate – the fee of a bright child.

“Well, Mommy’s having a baby,” Winry revealed to him. “You’re going to be a big brother.”

Marcus squeals. “Really?”

Edward doesn’t remember the day he became a big brother. He was barely a year old, after all. As long as he could remember, his brother was just there. But Marcus, on the other hand – he has those memories. He remembers when he was told, and he remembers the day his little sister was born. Granted, it would take him a couple years to remember what day in October in particular, but he remembers meeting her.

Edward never met Alphonse. They were never introduced. They were always there and with each other and nothing could have ever split them apart. Despite this, Marcus and his sister grow to be just as close. Just as tightly bound.

Her name is Isabelle; and by the time she’s three, she asks her father about alchemy.


	2. The First Thirteen Years (364/365)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, minor character death  
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: A Silent Hill Ambient Playlist, plus a playlist I’m starting to develop for this fic. You can find it here, but it is in fact subject to change throughout the course of this fic until it is done: https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/2UtgTfp4jZK741J6VFpiSZ?si=RMQbPazfQxabqpNSttM5aw  
> There is a scene here that was inspired by this lovely artwork by persnickety-doodles on Tumblr: http://persnickety-doodles.tumblr.com/post/37297375747/read-left-to-right-heres-a-link-to-the
> 
> I saw that art when I was like 12 and brand new to FMA and was SHOOK and I want to thank them for their permission for allowing me to include it as a scene in this fic!! I think the hardest part about this was creating a timeline of years and things like that so that the characters’ ages and such all made sense and was do-able. By the end of this fic, it’ll be the early 40s, if that puts things in perspective. Not to mention I had to do more research into governments than I care to admit. I forgot how political this show was lmaooo –I would plug my Tumblr, elenastidham and minuetofthewild, but since Tumblr’s banning nsfw content I won’t be able to post any nsfw stuff. Plus, there’s links in the bios of my blogs that will take you to other places where you can enjoy sneak peeks and early access to my writing and so on. Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you enjoy it!!  
> -Elena

At the age of three, she’s transmuting dolls out of bricks.

Typically when a young alchemist starts creating for the first time their toys tend to be lacklustre, something that develops the more they practice with incoming knowledge and age. Isabelle, however, takes a bit after her father with his alchemical talent.

However, when she’s started doodling runes in a pattern that he’s never seen before, that’s when Edward realises that she’s taking a bit after someone else, too.

“What’s that supposed to mean, babydoll?” he asks, watching his daughter finish up her circle.

She shrugs. “I just wondered if it would work.”

“Yeah, but what _is_ it?” He asks. He notices a few runes there – representing water and iron – from what he can tell it looks like she’s trying to represent blood in her circle.

“Mind alchemy,” she says simply. “I wonder if I can make bad things go away from the brain.”

Ed shakes his head simply before carefully reaching over and purposely wiping his hand across her circle to smudge and disperse it. “Alchemy on humans is strictly taboo.”

“But the books say creating humans is forbidden, not this,” Isabelle scrunches her face. “I’m trying to help people.”

He nods. “I get that, but you shouldn’t play with other peoples’ lives, Izzy. That’s the kind of thing that bad guys tend to do.”

Isabelle Elric was not a bad guy.

There’s a careful procedure that only comes with training new students in alchemy. Edward sees now what his teacher must have felt, now more than ever there’s intense pressure on his shoulders to make sure his daughter doesn’t make his same mistake. Good intentions or not. He can only wonder and imagine the worst, but he can’t think the worst. It’s the struggle of every teacher. It’s the struggle of every parent.

With this fear of the worst, he wants to act on it – taking every precaution possible to prevent the worst disasters. He’ll be damned if he leaves his children to fight against the wolves with nothing.

That reminds him. If something – god forbid – were to happen to him and Winry, what would happen to the kids? He’d have them sent to Alphonse and May without a doubt, sure, but what if something were to happen with them too? If he and Winry were to be targeted for anything, Alphonse and May would definitely also have been caught in the crossfire.

The kids have to be safe – they need to be sent somewhere safe.

Despite the dangers with being a General, Edward realises that it would probably be safer for the kids to go Mustang because of the intense security there. Despite knowing Alphonse is more than capable, he also knows that the infamous Flame Alchemist would do whatever it takes to keep his loved ones safe. Alphonse has boundaries.

It’s funny how Edward has grown. He’d never take a life, he’d never allow anyone else to take another life – but when it comes to his son? To his little girl? He’d pull that damn trigger himself if he had no other choice.

It’s just that Ed is lucky enough to constantly have other choices. As long as he can, he’d look for other choices. Then again, what he’s feeling may just be that of every other parent. It’s funny, he sounds almost like the General.

Speaking of the General, it reminds him that he has to ask him of this.

“You should say goodbye to the kids before you go.”

Edward turns back to the source of the voice. Winry hasn’t got a hint of worry in her tone, her arms crossed as she leans against the kitchen doorway, peering into the hall and locked on the front door.

He thinks for a moment, then he sets down his briefcase with a sigh. “I suppose you’re right,” he looks down the hallway, but then groans when he turns back to his wife with this tender look in his eyes. “But if I see their cute, sleeping faces, I won’t want to go.”

Winry just giggles softly, yawning quietly as she steps forward to give her husband a simple kiss goodbye, but she freezes when she hears little voices and tiny footsteps. She turns, smiling softly once her eyes register her kids. “Oh, look who’s up.”

Edward’s demeanour is just as warm. “What are you two doing up?”

Marcus, who had just turned seven within the spring, is the first to speak, his voice oozing with tired. He rubs his eyes. “Izzy wanted me to guard the door while she used the potty.” He doesn’t let go of her hand.

Winry kneels down in front of the boy, smiling with pride, now, as she pets him gently on the head for his behaviour. “You are growing up to be quite the young man.”

The boy, however, doesn’t bother to listen to the compliment. Noticing his father’s briefcase, his attention is drawn elsewhere. “Daddy?” He asks. Ed swallows hard. He continues. “Where are you going?”

It’s the question he’s been dreading to answer. There’s a pang of guilt that hits him after hearing his son’s voice like that, but he still manages to keep his voice gentle as he kneels down to look him in the eyes. “I have to go to Central for a few days.”

Before he can reassure that he’ll be right back, and he’ll never leave the kids, his little boy decides to ask a question whose hit is painful. “Are you coming back?” In that split second, he remembers his own father. He remembers how he waited. He remembers the waiting, the waiting, the _waiting—_ “Can I come?”

“Well, um,” the question catches him off guard. But then he thinks, _why the hell not?_ Ed beams, laughing softly. “Of course, you can! What was I thinking? We should all go!” He lifts the two children up into his arms with joy as his voice starts to bounce with joy. Isabelle remains unphased, just resting her head on her father, so he gently passes her off to Winry to let her fall asleep. “I just remembered, The General hasn’t seen you since you were babies! Wait till he sees you both now.”

It’s a split-second decision that didn’t require any second thought. Within the hour, all four of the Elrics were taking the train to Central Headquarters.

General Mustang’s office is similar to how it was when he was Colonel, but a little more roomy. His couch is softer – more comfortable – and he noticed the little knick-knacks on the coffee table and along the bookshelves. Little things he never really had out before. Little things he wasn’t afraid to put on display.

“I’m surprised, General,” Ed says simply, taking a sip of coffee while he admires the little details that weren’t there before. “Normally someone with your power and position has bodyguards swarming the place.”

Mustang chuckles, his tone completely flat. “I only need my wife, thank you.”

Elric only grins.

“I’m assuming you’re not just here for a cup of coffee, Fullmetal,” the General says simply, lowering his mug and looking back up at his former subordinate. There’s a break of silence, simply watching the boy take a moment to make up his mind, before he finally speaks again. “Let’s cut to the chase here.”

Edward inhales sharply. He sets down his mug and looks up at Mustang dead in the eyes. “I need to ask you to do something for me.” His tone is completely serious. “Think of it as a death wish.”

Instantly, the General’s face falters and his body shifts in his seat. He’s leaning forward, now. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I think,” Ed shakes his head. “But here recently I think I’m being watched.”

Roy brings out a notepad now, readying a pen to leave himself notes for later. “I can send a couple soldiers to Resembool or I can put—”

“—Don’t,” He brings his hand up, pausing for a moment, before he waves it off and shakes his head with this motion. He sighs. “I’m insulted that you think I can’t handle myself.”

“Then why the hell are you—”

“—My kids, asshole. I’m worried about my kids.” Edward leans in and places down two different files on the desk. It’s in his handwriting.

The General thinks on this statement for a moment, before he realises the exact contents in those folders. “You want me to take in the kids.” It’s a question that sounds like a statement.

“Not now,” he replies. “In fact, I hope you don’t have to ever. I’m just setting up precautions.” He pauses. The weight in the air sinks. “I want you to take them if something were to happen to me.”

The General makes a face crossed between a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “You’re asking me instead of your brother?”

“Chances are if something happens to me, it’s _going_ to happen to my brother. Or, it would have _already_ happened to my brother.” He wouldn’t want Alphonse involved in it any kind of danger he could be in, but given their history, he’s sure that it can’t be helped.

There’s a moment caught between them in the air where sentences were held back in restraint. It’s a shared thought. Similar competency. Then at the end of this moment the silence is finally broken again. “Don’t make me say please.”

Mustang takes another minute, before, gently, he nods. He leans in and takes both files before he skims through them briefly. He grins. “Your girl’s into alchemy?”

Ed chuckles. “Yeah. Izzy’s learning from me. She especially likes it when Alphonse is around because he can show her things I can’t do.”

Roy picks up his pen. He leaves a little note about the ‘Izzy’ nickname on the notepad before sticking it in her file. “Perhaps she can show me at dinner tonight.”

“No perhaps about it,” he smirks and chuckles again. “She takes great pride in her work and loves to show it off whenever she can.”

“Ah, so she’s an exact replica of you,” Mustang smirks from behind the file. It has everything, from their current measurements all the way down to the way they like their sandwiches cut. For Marcus, right down the middle in a vertical line. For Isabelle, perfect diagonal halves. “You have a lot of details in here that I won’t necessarily need, Fullmetal.”

Ed’s silent for a moment, before he speaks again. “You remember a lot of details while you’re raising Maes, right?”

The General pauses. Then he just shrugs and continues reading.

“How is he, by the way? Isn’t he like, ten now?”

“Thirteen, actually,” he chuckles lightly. He places Isabelle’s file on a stack on his desk before he rummages around and turns around a picture. Face and body stance wise, this boy is just like his father. However, those amber eyes definitely, _absolutely_ belong to Hawkeye.

“Goddamn,” Ed chuckles. The father just nods in agreement as he turns the photo back, switching over to Marcus’s file to glance through. “That’s making me feel old and he’s not even my son. I can only imagine being _actually_ old, like you.”

Roy rolls his eyes. “I cannot wait to tell you that when _your_ boy’s the same age.” He catches something. “Speaking of, he wants to be a mechanic?”

He nods. “He’s got a knack for tinkering. Even when it’s not automail he’s always working with puzzles and building things.” Roy grabs his pen, and without missing a beat he’s interrupted. “That’s in the file.” The pen is slowly placed back down. A soft, breathy chuckle. “Even if he doesn’t end up as an automail mechanic, he’s likely going to work in some similar field.”

The General nods. “If it’s alright with you, there’ll likely be plenty of openings in the military when he’s older.” He gestures out into the hallway. “With the way technology is rapidly advancing, we could use someone like him.”

Edward shrugs, but his thoughts on the matter pretty clear based on his action. “We’ll see,” he says. “I’ll give you my stance on that decision once I see how you do for a few years as Führer.”

The General remains silent.

“Speaking of, how is the Führer doing?” He asks.

Mustang inhales deeply, then sets aside Marcus’s file. “He’s recently fallen sick,” he says simply. “And, between you and me, he isn’t looking so good.”

Ed swallows hard. Grumman is the first true Führer of Amestris, and this country has gone through a lot of changes because of it. They both know that shit is going to hit the fan once he dies. It’s going to take a while under Mustang until the public can completely adjust. Granted, nobody knows the true identities of King and Selim—

“Holy hell, how’s Selim?” He had completely forgotten that he was even a problem. Last he heard this kid was assigned someone that spoke with him every month to make sure everything was okay.

Roy waved him off. “Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s actually about to go to Central University to study political science.” He gestures to his forehead. “He’s still got that thing on his face, but that gives us an excuse to talk with him every month and examine him to make sure it isn’t ‘a potential hazard.’ So far I don’t think he’s noticed any issues.”

The sigh was only half relieved.

When spring comes again Isabelle had lately turned four, her brother on the edge of eight now. The Spring Sheep Festival had just passed, and while the family wanders around their orchard checking the progress on their apple trees, Isabelle soon realises that she does not want this quiet life anymore.

She can’t use alchemy like she wants, she doesn’t get much out of this orchard other than the occasional apple pie when her mother wants to bake something, and she definitely can’t get much excitement out of doing nothing in this quiet life.

However, while the life remains quiet for her – her parents were doing everything in their power to drown out the rest of the world into silence. It’s something Isabelle wouldn’t really notice until she grows older and starts reading old newspapers for research: at this particular point in her life, Führer Grumman has died. Some kind of illness. Marcus more than likely remembers.

The next in line to take his place is General Mustang – and while the people settled well with him at first, the new reforms he immediately starts introducing is turning more than quite a few heads. Needless to say, a rocky start is quite the understatement.

Marcus remembers the day when Amestris became a democracy, because he remembers what this means. He tries to explain it to his little sister as best as he can, but the five-year-old can’t quite grasp any concept of government just yet, so he just resorts to telling her “this day is very, very important, Izzy.”

She learns when she’s old enough.

She remembers, however, her parents leaving her alone with Marcus for a short while and coming back with a look of worry. She won’t learn this until she’s definitely old enough: but Führer Mustang had issued a voting day that would determine whether or not he would remain as the country’s leader.

Due to his work up until this point, there was an overwhelming majority vote to keep him in. It obviously goes without saying what her parents voted for.

She remembers one morning when she’s about six when she woke up and wandered downstairs to find military men standing right outside the windows. She screamed, promptly causing her father to bolt out his bedroom faster than she could finish.

Apparently – Führer Mustang had sent some protection.

She remembers how her brother had gently taken her by the hand and guided her into his room to play with some toys so she wouldn’t have to hear her father’s incoming aggressive phone call.

Isabelle never understood why she and her family would need protection, but it wasn’t until the night of her fourteenth birthday when she’d find out. On the night of her fourteenth birthday, that’s when she knew.

Today, very simply, is her last day remaining at age thirteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again another reminder that my Tumblr is elenastidham and my Zelda themed Tumblr is minuetofthewild. Thank you so much for reading this and I hope you enjoyed!  
> -Elena


	3. 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, violence  
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: A playlist I’m starting to develop for this fic. You can find it here, but it is in fact subject to change throughout the course of this fic until it is done: https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/2UtgTfp4jZK741J6VFpiSZ?si=RMQbPazfQxabqpNSttM5aw  
> In case you haven't noticed, I have a chapter count now! I literally just finished the outline, so I'm pretty sure this is what I'm doing. I rewrote....so much....I’m so used to writing Roy Mustang as “The General” when I originally wrote Dead Aim Alchemist that writing The Führer is causing a lot of old muscle habits to die really hard. I’m gonna plug my Tumblrs: elenastidham (personal, aesthetic) and minuetofthewild (if you like Zelda content this is more for you). Plus, there’s links in the bios of my blogs that will take you to where you can enjoy sneak peeks and early access to my writing and so on. Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you enjoy it!!  
> -Elena

If you’d ask Isabelle Elric to recall what it feels like to have the sun fall onto your shoulders, she’d say it’s heat from kicked up dirt and shattered glass. She still bears a scar just beneath her shoulder from when the window carved her in, a light, faded shade where it didn’t cut too deep – but just enough to leave a permanent mark behind.

She was used to incidents happening around the time of her birthday – typically it always fell a few days before – but they were never anything serious. If anything, the most appalling to her was the night before her tenth birthday. Marcus had taken her outside for a surprise; they were visiting Xing for a short amount of time, and the kids have always found a fascination for big cities rather than the isolated farm country they lived in. It’s a nice foil to the quiet life, a nice getaway.

It was that particular time of twilight where the sun and the moon are on the same parallel to each other, the sky mixed with a deep, burnt orange and a smoky kind of grey. It’s a little too late to be running around a city of this kind, but Marcus was fresh into thirteen (“practically an adult,” he says), he’d protect her if something were to go wrong. Nothing new from when they were little.

He held her hand throughout the time of walking the pathway, considering it was more for giving her a pleasant experience rather than giving her somewhere to play.

“Is there anything that you want to do while we’re out here, Izzy?” He had asked her.

She just shrugged.

It had just started to rain when they realised they were too far away from the palace they were staying, lost in a large, foreign city with nothing except some pocket change and a little girl’s alchemy ability. Marcus was the only one that had any useful skills in the Xingese language, with Isabelle currently working on her colours and numbers as well as her introductions.

It was Alphonse’s idea that they learn, just as he did. “It’s a lot easier than you think,” he said. “If you break it down like alchemy—”

“—That doesn’t help me,” Winry just laughed.

Marcus looked it the same way he’d look at the limbs he’d create – each individual piece to articulate each extremity – and before he knew it, he was learning the language faster than his alchemist sister.

He found someone that looked friendly enough, and politely began to ask them how to make his way to the palace, not even realising he had let go of his sister’s hand to do so. She stayed by his side, quietly trying to listen and glancing around to put things into context before something caught her eye.

A beast, it looked like, small but livid – the dog was shrouded in black and grey fur and shivering in the rain. The thing looked badly beaten, and it struggled to breathe. In that moment, Isabelle had forgotten where she was, and who she was with. All she remembers is stepping forward and peeling off her jacket.

Upon closer inspection, she learns it’s a little too big to be a dog, but more of a cousin. A boy, too. She didn’t even know that there could be such a beast in this country, in a city alleyway nonetheless, but when she steps forward, he tenses and instantly growls. Her eyes, curious and wide and wondering, guide her fragile body closer. He growls a little louder and tries to scramble backwards, his defence about as intimidating as a child acting brave.

“Hey, hey, easy,” Isabelle’s small voice whispers quietly, comfortingly. She brings her jacket up over her head and then kneels in front of him, soaking her kneels from the ground but taking the rain off the beast. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” For a split second, she could have sworn that he understood human speech.

“Izzy!”

She glances back, noticing the panicked face of her brother calm down with a sigh when he sees where she is. Marcus walks forward, reaching out to her, but she yanks her arm away. “He’s hurt, Marcus! I found a puppy and he’s hurt! We have to help him.”

“A puppy?” Marcus asks, peeking over her shoulder, then he hisses with worry as he instantly grabs her and yanks her back. “He’s a _wolf_ , Izzy, those things can kill you!”

“He’s not gonna kill me!” Isabelle shouts back, pushing herself off her brother and then stepping down in front of the wolf. She slowly brings her hand forward, then strokes its fur, noticing how it instantly calms down against the touch. “Look, see? He likes me.”

He groans softly, wiping his face in his hands, before he just leans forward, studying the monster suddenly behaving more human. “How can we help him? He looks like he’s about to die.”

Those were _not_ the words that Isabelle needed to hear.

Instantly, she starts wailing. “No, no, Marcus! He can’t die! We gotta help him so he doesn’t die!” She tugs on his arm and looks back at the puppy, noticing his eyes were misty with white. “Look, he’s blind. He can’t even help himself! Please, Marcus, _please_ , we can’t let him just _die_ —”

“—Alright, al- _right_!” Marcus shouts, pushing her off of him and instantly trying to calm her down. “I’ll see what I can do.” He sighs deeply, before leaning forward and carefully taking the creature’s paw. He studies it for a moment, then carefully checked his face. “It looks like this can be fixed with some alkahestry.”

“Can we take him to Auntie May?”

“It looks like we don’t have much of any other choice,” he sighs and then rises to a stand. He goes to pick him up, but he’s suddenly being swatted away.

“I wanna do it, I wanna do it!” Isabelle shouts, bending down and picking it up herself. The beast is a lot heavier than it seems, but she insists, so he doesn’t decline. She wraps the jacket around him and hoists him up into her arms and holds him tightly against her chest. At first, the wolf looks around, but Isabelle just pets him softly on his head and shushes him, before he finally rests his head on her shoulder, a little more at ease. “Do you remember how to go back to Auntie May’s house?”

Marcus groans softly. “Yeah, I remember. And I’m telling Mom and Dad that you ran off.”

“I just wanted to help him,” she whimpers softly, almost about to cry at the fact she’s going to be in trouble on her birthday. The tone of voice only gave her brother a pang of guilt for a moment, yet they continue forward.

Once they make their way inside, they can hear voices echoing from down the grand hall. Marcus glances back, noticing his sister now just petting the wolf absentmindedly as she walks with him. He sighs, thinking for a moment, before he simply says to her: “when I open this door, follow my lead, okay?”

“Okay,” she mumbles.

When he slides open the door he practically crashes into his father. He looks up, watching his father sigh and step back in relief. Winry mirrors him practically immediately.

“For god’s sake, Marcus, we were just about to go look for you,” Edward says, pressing his temples for a moment before looking at his kids, both of them completely soaked to the bone. “Where did you two go? It’s pouring the rain outside and—Izzy, is that a dog?” He asks.

She nods. Marcus gestures to it. “I was taking her on a walk but we found an injured puppy. Izzy just begged and begged that we save him and I told her that you guys can use alkahestry.”

“Well, Al and May can. I can take him to them,” Ed says simply as he steps forward and goes to take the wolf from Isabelle’s arms before he freezes. How on _Earth_ did his daughter manage to keep a wolf tame? It’s a question he’s completely puzzled with for years – but in the moment, he just lowers his voice some and tries to act as calm as possible. “Izzy, baby, that’s not a dog.”

“Please, Daddy?” She asks. “He likes me. I promised him we’d help him and he’s being nice. Please?”

Edward inhales sharply, before he carefully reaching for the cub. It immediately jolts with energy and turns its head to him, growling loudly before Isabelle quickly bounces him like a baby. When Ed steps back, the beast turns back to the girl and rests his head on her shoulder like before. It seems he really has taken a liking to her.

“He’s not a bad guy,” Isabelle comforts the creature. “He’s gonna help you.”

She pauses, and for a moment, she can almost feel the wolf speak a human language without saying anything at all. Something within her told her what he’s trying to say – something desperate – something like: _please, don’t leave me alone._

“Can I take him to Uncle Al and Auntie May?” She asks quietly. “Can I do it?”

It seems there isn’t much of any other choice.

Carefully, she’s guided into a separate room with her aunt and uncle, who seem to react in similar surprise and fear when they see this little girl carrying a wild animal. However, May’s reaction suddenly shifts to confusion once she keeps her eyes on it for a moment.

Alphonse seems to notice it. He quietly gets her attention and keeps his voice low, speaking in Xingese so he doesn’t alert his niece. “What’s wrong?”

“The chi,” May whispers. “It’s not right. It’s _human_.”

He looks back at the wolf Isabelle’s carrying. He doesn’t make a scene out of it, but he does glance up and give his brother a knowing look – one they recognise a little too well – that there’s something; this something doesn’t necessarily have to be wrong, but it’s most definitely not right, either. This is just _something_ , something is all.

“Yeah, Izzy, we can help him,” Alphonse says, comfortingly, kneeling down and holding his arms out. “The thing is, though, you can’t be in here and see it.”

“Why not? I’ve seen you do alkahestry before,” Isabelle holds the wolf a little tighter, and he reacts accordingly, perking up and acting as a guard for her, until he gestures for her to loosen, and she does. It’s only then when he relaxes again.

Alphonse was never a good liar, and he isn’t as skilled in alkahestry as he is in alchemy to come up with an adept excuse – but thankfully, his wife knew the perfect excuse. “It’s an animal. We have to use a specific type,” May says carefully. “If it’s not done right, we could hurt you in the process, and we don’t want to do that.”

Isabelle sighs softly, then she nods, before looking back at the puppy quietly and petting him a few more times. “I have to let you go. They’re going to help you, okay? I promise I’ll be very, very close, and I’ll come right back in when they’re done.”

The beast almost nods.

She gently hands him off to her uncle, who’s careful to give her back her dripping jacket and hold him carefully. One glance at his brother says everything else, and Edward is guiding her out of the room, much further away than she said she’d be.

Alphonse turns back to May, suddenly uneasy. The idea of a human dog brought him back to somewhere awful – needless to say there was a reason why Isabelle’s name didn’t end up as Nina. “Are you sure that this is a human? He feels an awful lot like a wolf to me.”

She nods. “Definitely. The chi hasn’t been wrong before.”

He carefully places the animal in a circle May had sketched on the floor with her toe. “Is there a way to switch him back?”

“I don’t know,” she says softly. “I’m just focusing on healing him for right now, and we can figure out where to go from there.”

However, the moment her hand is placed on her own circle, there’s an instant reaction that isn’t like it normally is before. Fearing the worst, Alphonse instantly runs over and grabs her, his back to the wolf in case of a rebound that he’d try to take in her place. Then the light stops – and for a moment, so does the sound, until suddenly the room echoes with the soft sound of coughing.

Alphonse is the first to look, and in a moment of shock that’s when May can steal a glance too. Completely shrouded in a black jacket too large for size, in the circle lays a young boy. He looked no older than Marcus – perhaps even a year or so younger – and any wounds he had were completely healed, despite his quick and shallow breathing.

“How did you do that?” Al asks quietly, knowing that there’s no true answer. It’s as if the boy’s body just reacted to alchemy altogether. Carefully, he stands, making his way to the boy and reaching out his hand. “Hey,” he’s sure to be careful and quiet. “What happened? Are you okay?”

There’s a translucent, misty layer of white on this boy’s eyes. He’s blind. His skin is a light brown, similar to an Ishvalan, but with a golden undertone. His hair is a dark brown, with high cheekbones and a nose that sharply compliments his jawline.

Suddenly, the boy does not seem to understand this language anymore. He glances around in a panic, not being able to see anything, and his breathing picks up even more when all other senses are heightened, even more so when he feels someone reaching for him.

He scrambles up to his feet and then dashes out the door faster than they can comprehend, and despite their chasing and endless searching – they can never again find him.

The next night, Isabelle’s ten years old, and from time to time after that she wonders what happened to that hurting wolf. She’ll see him in her dreams sometimes, following her around and making sure that she never falls into hurt. She wonders every now and then where he could have run off to, and if he even made it out okay. Is he still alive? She thinks. Is he somewhere safe?

She goes to bed every night with a simple answer: _I don’t know._

 

* * *

 

This particular early morning of October 12th, 1942 is brisk and old. The crisp wind peeking in-between the cracks and making their way into the house is what wakes Isabelle up earlier than normal, but she manages to keep quiet as she makes her way down the stairs.

She isn’t awake for much longer than the rest of her family, about halfway through her bowl of cereal when she hears her brother groan from behind her. She glances back, and he’s giving her a look.

“I was gonna surprise you for breakfast, stupid,” Marcus just sighs, then just walks past her to make his way to the pantry, rubbing the top of her head playfully. “Happy birthday, Izzy.”

“Thanks,” she giggles softly. “You don’t have to make me anything, I literally just wanted cereal.”

He chuckles once through his nose, pulling out the box and making himself a bowl. “I don’t get you sometimes,” he says. “On my fourteenth we had this massive celebration in Central and everything, and when your fourteenth comes, literally all you want is to make a bowl of cereal.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Isabelle shrugs with a grin. “Just because I don’t like living in this quiet life doesn’t mean that I don’t like all parts of it.”

Marcus uses the last of their milk from last night and sits across from her, keeping his ear open for the door for when today’s milk delivery arrives. He takes a bite for a moment, then he looks at her. “Seriously, though. It’s not too late to ask for something for your birthday. Your _fourteenth_ birthday, after all. You know, the biggest birthday you’ll ever _have_ —”

“—Eighteen,” Isabelle corrects. “Fourteen is basically eighteen with parent’s permission, and you know as well as I do Mom and Dad aren’t gonna sign off on the things I want so easily.”

It takes him a moment to remember what she’s talking about, then he shakes his head. “Even if they sign on it, you know Führer Mustang isn’t gonna let you in.”

“A girl can dream,” she laughs.

Within the next couple of minutes Isabelle’s up at the sink and washing out her finished bowl, glancing out the window every so often to see if Alphonse and May were showing up at any point yet. She knew they were coming, as well as the Führer himself and his Lieutenant, but it’s just a matter of when. It’s always the matter of when.

She can only imagine how early of a train Alphonse had to have taken in order to arrive before the end of the morning. May had an important meeting with Emperor Yao just before lunchtime the night before, so she’d show up pushing dinnertime with how long the train ride is from Central and Xing – then another domestic train to Resembool. There’s talk and rumours of a project the engineers in the military are working on a way to make travel even faster: by having a train in the air.

It’s incredible, the science that’s advancing. It only sucked that it wasn’t in effect yet so her aunt would arrive fashionably late. Then again, she’s not upset about it entirely, she understands that adults need to do adult things.

She answers a phone call moments after Alphonse arrives – it’s the Führer, apparently. He and his wife are running late, too, so they should make it in the early evening.

“That’s fine,” she says. “Take your time.”

And they do.

Once Alphonse is completely settled in the first thing Isabelle asked of him was another alchemy lesson – something more hands on that her father can’t provide. Her father teaches her all he can, from explaining all and one all the way down to what every little rune means. He’ll watch her and comment on what she needs to do, but there’s only so much he can teach without creating a visual aid. This is where his brother can help.

They’re typically shorter than the lessons she and her father have, but she learns just as much as any other lesson, sometimes more so.

Isabelle remembers the day where she asked her father why he couldn’t use alchemy anymore. He had just smiled warmly, looked at his little girl, and said: “I think it’s about time I tell you a story.”

And a story was told.

She never worked up the courage to ask Alphonse what it was like being trapped inside a suit of armour, and she didn’t know what compelled her to finally ask today, but when she does, she almost wished she hadn’t.

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking, before he just shrugs and says, “it could have been worse.”

That was definitely not the answer she was expecting. Isabelle looks at him oddly, perking her eyebrow before she responds. “That’s it?”

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have its perks,” he chuckles, thinking back to a few moments in particular. “But it also had it’s disadvantages. It’s a lot like having a human body, really. There’re perks, and disadvantages. It’s just a matter of your perspective on things.”

Isabelle had never thought of it that way. It’s easy to forget that behind the stories and legends that were told about her family that a human’s core strength comes from a heart as tough as iron. She glances at the circle on the table in front of her, thinking about his statement a few times in her head before she asks her final question. “What pushed you?” She pauses. “To keep going?”

“To keep moving forward?” He asks as clarification while he finishes up a few runes. She nods. Alphonse takes a moment to think of a set reason – because that reason was never spoken out loud before. “Well, Brother and I had a purpose. There was something to look forward to at the end of each day. It would have been so easy to stay behind in Resembool and feel sorry for ourselves, but we found something to fight for, and we just _had_ to fight for it. It’s how we changed our lives. It’s how you change yours.”

Isabelle didn’t know that within a few hours she’d be holding these words for the next many years of her life.

It’s about four in the afternoon when they decide to open presents and pull out the cake. Despite fourteen being a big year for children in Amestris, Isabelle didn’t ask for much. In fact, she said she’d rather have the presents she would have gotten at this age be given to her instead when she turns eighteen, so everybody was thrown into a loop about what to get her.

Thankfully, that didn’t stop her close family from having ideas.

She grabs the bag from her brother first, noticing how it’s the largest from the small collection of other gifts. “I swear to god if you spent more than—”

“—I didn’t spend anything you little shit just open it,” Marcus laughs. Winry backhands his arm lightly about his language, and he just shrugs it off. “I made it.”

Isabelle just gives him a look, before she reaches in and pulls it out – it’s a lot softer than she expected, but once she pulls it out, she just giggles softly. “You made a stuffed cat toy?” She asks, almost shocked that he was capable of making something that wasn’t made out of metal.

“Yes, I did, thank you very much,” he shakes his head. “And the little thing in the paw, too.”

She flips it over and looks at the front left paw, noticing a little button in the centre. She presses it, and suddenly the toy comes alive with sound – words of love and luck from her family. Every one of them. She looks up. “How did you do that?”

“I’d tell you, but you’d get bored a fourth of the way in.”

His sister can only laugh lightly and shrug at that. “Touché.” Alphonse lightly taps on his nephew’s shoulder, asking him if he could make another at some point, too.

Isabelle grabs the smallest box next – figured it’d be a nice alternative from a rather large stuffed kitten she can hold in both hands. It’s from her mother, and she already has a feeling of what’s inside. She’s exactly right.

It’s an heirloom that started with Great Granny Pinako when she first started crafting automail. It’s a simple silver ring made from scrap metal. It’s completely polished and smoothed down, and it was older than both her parents put together. It was passed down to Winry’s mother before one day she received it for herself, and now, today, she’s giving it to her own daughter.

“Does it fit okay?” Winry asks, watching Isabelle put it on her right ring finger.

“It fits perfect, Mom,” Isabelle smiles.

The next box is from Alphonse, inside contains a bottle of perfume, which Isabelle quickly sprits onto her wrists and then smells. If heaven had a smell, it’d be this – something she first smelled as a child from her Aunt May, but nobody knew what it was. The label had been rubbed off from consistent use, and she had run out by the time she was six and couldn’t buy another bottle. No perfume has smelt just as amazing since then.

It’s like a field that holds nothing but flowers – all kinds – and with this overall scent it seems there was an added scent that wasn’t there before from when she was a kid. Apples, Isabelle recognises immediately. She remembers asking for it with a hint of apple.

“Where did you get this?” She asks, looking at her uncle in surprise.

“I made it,” Alphonse laughs lightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “It took _years_ of figuring out what chemicals made what scents, but I finally got it. I wrote the recipe down, too, so one day I’ll show you how to make it again. Does it smell right?”

“Even better,” Isabelle smiles wide, smelling it again. It’s just as amazing.

This leaves only one more wide, yet thin box behind, and she knows it’s from her father. Isabelle leans forward, opening the container and revealing nothing but a red cloth. She gives him a look, and Edward just gestures she opens it further. She does.

When she first heard the story of The Elric Brothers fighting for their bodies Edward had shown her the cloak he originally fought in, bright red with a black insignia on the backside. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, and some days she still couldn’t. The cloak and the pocket watch alongside a head from a suit of armour – these pieces of history told a story better than any alchemist by campfire’s flame. It was ripped to shreds and absolutely filthy, a stark contrast from the simple and clean jacket Isabelle pulls out from the box.

“I figured this would be more your style,” Ed thinks out loud, watching his little girl’s face light up bright as she instantly put it on. It’s simple, it’s classy, and certainly not as gaudy as what her father constantly wore. However, it’s the same feeling. The same design.

“Thank you,” Isabelle speaks, to everyone.

There’s a moment, then Winry stands up and claps her hands together proudly. “Well, Izzy, if you’re up for it, we can get the cake ready?”

“Sure.”

As Winry pulls out the cake she had finished hours prior, Ed asks if the windows can start being closed (“It’s going to rain soon,” he had said), and so they are. The glass panels sealed to wooden boards with the air tightly locked in and outside – his limbs still ache, but it’s a little easier to handle inside.

The next couple moments seem to slow down to a blur. Isabelle will never forget the moment her mother places down a cake and candles right in front of her. She will never forget watching each individual flame. She will never forget how, in the midst of nothing seeming—

“—happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Izzy, happy birthday, to _you_ —”

—the sun falls directly onto her shoulders.

Heat from kicked up dirt and shattered glass. Isabelle doesn’t hear much else for a few moments, suddenly coughing from the air being knocked out of her lungs as she’s pushing herself onto her knees, careful to avoid pressing her palms into the glass scattering across the floor. She feels hands quickly grab her by her arms and pull her up, and when her mind finally registers what’s going on, she realises she’s being held by her father, tightly protected as she and her whole family are backed into a corner at gunpoint.

For a second, she doesn’t even realise that there’s guns.

There’s a moment of silence, analysing, before all of a sudden there’s slow clapping. It’s repeated, growing louder until a man steps past the doorframe, in front of the army that ambushed their home, just to look at them and grin.

Isabelle will never forget this man’s face. It’s obvious he was a man too far gone into madness that he’s on the line bridging between monster and human, leaning towards the monster. His hair is brown which appeared to be greying slightly, a sharp scar across his eyebrow to his temple, dipping slightly into his eyelid. His teeth are sharp like fangs while his eyes themselves were wild and crazed yet covered in a mask of incomprehensible calm. His clothes are too deep of a shade of crimson that it’s practically brown, and Isabelle isn’t sure if it’s made to look that way or if it’s decorated by dried blood.

“How touching,” he says coolly, his voice gravelly and rough. He skims the small crowd, before he points at Isabelle. “That girl,” he says, and instantly she’s being pried away from her father, screaming and trying to fight back as she does. Yet, she lacks brute strength, and she finds herself being held still by her elbows pushed behind her back. He steps to her and gently pats her head twice. “I hate to intrude, but happy birthday.”

Isabelle can’t smudge herself out of this soldier’s grasp. Her shoulder burns, and she glances in its direction. Blood. Blood on a shard of glass. Blood on the soldier’s hand. This is going to scar for sure. “I didn’t invite you,” she hisses, which prompts him to laugh.

“An attitude, I see.” He turns back to the family, then instructs all of them be pried apart, and so they are. However, just as they reach for Alphonse, his hands clap together, a loud, ringing sound echoing in the air – but before he can bring his hands to the ground, the man with the scar yells louder. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Alphonse pauses, glancing in his direction, then speaks, regardless of his tremulous voice. “Why, are you going to shoot at me?”

The man just chuckles again, then he sighs. After a moment, he makes a hand movement in Marcus’s direction, and a loud, ringing gunshot pierces through the room. Everybody’s heads instantly snap in the direction it came from, noticing the colour of crimson spreading across Marcus’s side.

He coughs twice, his hands trembling as he reaches for his new wound, then he falls to the ground, curling into a ball.

“ _Marcus!_ ” Isabelle screeches, suddenly overcome with a new strength to try and break from her soldier’s grasp. “ _Marcus!_ ”

“You might want to dispel that transmutation, Alphonse,” the man demands smoothly, his eyes slithering from the growing puddle of blood to the alchemist that’s slowly raising his hands. They’re clasped in a plank of wood, and he’s the first to be shoved outside. Isabelle’s eyes follow her uncle, noticing them force him into the back of a covered military truck. It’s a dirty khaki colour, just like the rest of the uniforms the soldiers are wearing. He takes a deep breath, turning back to the parents. “I suggest you two cooperate as well.” He gestures to Winry, and the soldiers comply with her next.

“Marcus, Marcus, hang on son, stay alive,” Edward stresses, trying to pry himself away so he can reach for him. His mind races with a thousand different ideas to get him and his family out of this situation. “Please, please, stay _alive_.”

The man gestures to Edward next, and the next thing he knows he’s being drug past his son’s bleeding body and his daughter screaming for his life. The next thing he knows is one more idea that could save them all. “Izzy, you know alkahestry,” he lies, an emphasis in his tone indicating a different message to the girl. “Please, do something!”

With that, he’s out the door and the man turns to her. In that moment, she knows what her father was trying to tell her.

“Yes, I do! I can heal him. Please, they’re all in the truck, let me heal him,” she begs softly.

“Will you both follow them in?” He asks. She nods profusely. He nods once, and she’s being released. Instantly, she’s running over to her brother’s side, drawing a transmutation circle onto the ground. She doesn’t know alkahestry at all.

“Step back, please. He needs room for this to work,” Isabelle commands, her voice wavering. Her hands are shaking. Her breath is shaking. It seems that in this moment of the enemy’s obedience, her entire _soul_ is shaking. In that moment, she takes a deep breath, then plunges her hands onto the wood below, the room suddenly exploding in a dark smoke.

“That little _bitch_!” The man cries, and instantly Isabelle is grabbing her brother, dragging him off to the side and shoving him into the hall closet for safety. She turns back, unable to see anything in the house, but she knows her way around. His voice calls out to the rest of them. “Leave them here! We have what we need to get started, we can come back for them later!”

She instantly runs forward, dashing outside and seeing the van start speeding off. She draws another circle on the ground with haste, her lines shaky as she places her hands on the earth, the ground lifting her and zooming after the vehicle. Just as she’s about to reach them, the man looks out the window, tossing something towards the earth she’s being carried on. It explodes just as it touches the platform, and the next thing she knows is she’s falling, landing amongst crumbling rubble and thunder being the last thing she hears before darkness befalls on her ears.

 

* * *

 

“Isabelle,” a voice speaks, coated with worry. “ _Isabelle._ ”

Isabelle opens her eyes slowly, the rain completely pouring over of her and soaking her face, making her struggle to even open her eyes. She spews water from her lips and she wipes at her eyes a few times before she attempts to open them, despite having to constantly blink to keep the water away. She looks up, the figure in front of her starting to come to a focus.

The dark hair focuses first, and instantly she raises her hands to fight in a fit of panic, but the figure quickly grips at her wrists to prevent that. “Hey, _hey!_ ” He says, the voice suddenly distinct. “Calm down.” He takes his trench coat off and wraps it over her shoulders, his touch careful to remind her the world hasn’t ended yet. “Isabelle, hey,” he says again, and this time Isabelle finally knows who he is. “What the hell happened?”

She and the Führer lock eyes for a moment, before she remembers her brother – a boy caught in his own blood and locked in a closet – and she instantly shoots up and goes to run, but trips over her own messy footing. He catches her, and then helps her stand. “We found your brother, he’s fine. Lieutenant Hawkeye’s taking him to the town doctor as we speak.”

She pauses, letting the information sink in, her breathing heavy as her wide eyes turn back to the road. They got away. Within the timespan of six minutes, her entire life is gone, her family ripped from her arms and her reality suddenly crumbling apart.

“Isabelle,” Roy says again, finally, this time she looks back at him. “What _happened_?”

In that moment, when her lips part to speak, she can’t find a voice anymore. Her whole will shattered within a matter of seconds when the realisation kicks in of what happened. In that moment, her face twists, and her sobs start to carry an echo, no difference between her tears and the rain plummeting to the ground.

The Führer pulls her in close, and he starts guiding her out of the road, away from the scene, deciding to take her to the tiny hospital they have where Marcus and Riza went. They pass by her home, a window broken in and the door kicked to the ground, and she stops, her chest hollow and her crying still heavy.

A few moments of them walking along the path later they’re greeted by a pair of golden headlights. The driver’s door opens, and an umbrella opens out before someone steps out. “Sir,” The voice calls as she makes her way to the two of them. “You found her.” She holds the umbrella over them both.

“Yeah. She doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries, physically anyways,” Roy says, trying to keep his voice calm around the girl. “How’s Marcus?”

“They’re operating, but last I checked before I came out here, they said he should be able to make it through,” Riza replies.

“Come on,” he says softly, nudging her. He debates the next word, as it’s something he’s never called her before, nor is it something that he feels would lighten the mood – however, it may be something to make her feel a little more at grounded at home. “Izzy.”

It has no immediately noticeable effect on her. However, she does take a deep breath, then turns back and walks with them to the car, everything she touches completely drenched from the rain. She doesn’t even realise she’s freezing.

She sits in the back in complete silence, her grip on the trench coat tight around her shoulders and she watches out the window as the rain continues to pour, despite her crying slowing to a halt. She sees the scenery change, and she sees the blur of Resembool blend together, even when she’s walking inside.

The three of them sit outside Marcus’s room together, waiting for the moment they’re given the okay. The Führer and his Lieutenant are speaking quietly amongst themselves, but Isabelle still can hear them both. She still cannot find a voice.

“Did she say what happened?” the Lieutenant asks.

“No, she hasn’t said a thing. Just give them some time and we’ll find out soon enough.”

There’s a moment where they’re both silent, and then Roy finally turns to Isabelle quietly, pulling her closer to give her some kind of comfort of home – despite him not being her father, he’s still a father, nonetheless. He wouldn’t let another child suffer by themselves just because there isn’t a bloodline connection.

He waits for a moment, where he glances at his wife. They have the same look. He’s careful in his wording, but when he finally says something to Isabelle again, she hears him loud and clear. The Führer speaks words that almost sound rehearsed, almost like he wished to never have to say these words.

“We can stop by your house if you want to pick up a few things, but you both are going to stay with us for a while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while, but it’s worth it I hope!! I’m actually really excited to get started on the next chapter of this (after I finish the next chapter of Shattered Courage). But in the meantime, check out my Tumblrs (elenastidham and minuetofthewild) for more of my works and extra information on how you can get sneak peeks as well as early access to my works. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!! Also, happy new year!!  
> -Elena


	4. Readjustments (Generation 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, mentions of death with a very very small hint of violence. 
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: A few songs in my playlist I’m to developing for this fic. Specifically, “Meeting the Others” from the movie “Split,” is a notable one I had on repeat for a large portion of this chapter. You can find it here, but this playlist is in fact subject to change throughout the course of this fic until it is done: https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/2UtgTfp4jZK741J6VFpiSZ?si=RMQbPazfQxabqpNSttM5aw
> 
> Yes, the fake names used in this are in fact from The Book Thief. One of my many inspirations for this fic – as well as my fic String Theory – was that book, as it is my favourite of all time. Also, shout out to InnerGlow11 for leaving a comment on literally every chapter I’m posting! It really keeps me motivated I love comments so much you guys have no idea sorry if I never respond I never know how to take praise other than keysmashing and saying how much I love you guys…and that probably gets boring, haha. But really, thank you guys for the endless support and feedback so far. I’m gonna plug my Tumblrs: elenastidham (personal, aesthetic) and minuetofthewild (if you like Zelda content this is more for you). Plus, there’s links in the bios of my blogs that will take you to where you can enjoy sneak peeks and early access to my writing and so on. Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you enjoy it!!  
> -Elena

Her birthday present from the Führer, by the way, was a five-year diary decorated with stencils of gold. He showed her to her new room at his manor, and she quietly just sat on the bed, staring out her window, wishing she wasn’t even there at all. There was a long pause, before he carefully stepped in front of her and knelt down, taking her hands to open them, placing the book inside her grasp.

“This is yours,” he said softly. She said nothing in return. “And you staying here is temporary. I promise we’ll find them.”

With that, she found that she had no words left with a pen, either.

Marcus hasn’t left his room much since he’s come, his body still taking time to heal from the injury he had sustained a week prior – it’s a miracle he’s able to move at all as well as he can. Had he been left in that closet any longer, the gunshot would have proven to be fatal.

Several nights after her arrival to the manor Isabelle found herself unable to sleep at all each night. The first night she hadn’t slept for even an hour, but every night after she’d wake up with horrific nightmares only a half hour into her rest. Several nights after his arrival to the manor Marcus starts to find his sister sleeping on the floor beside his bed. He had no idea how or why she’d get there.

Life with the Führer is caught somewhere between chaotic and quiet. On the first full day of their stay he asked the siblings if it would be alright if they were interviewed for the newspaper’s story about the incident. Marcus told him no. Isabelle didn’t say anything. Still, a reporter for the Central Times arrived at their doorstep on the third day anyway.

Isabelle was in the dining room when she saw someone came. She saw the Führer groan as soon as he opened the door, and not at the man standing there, but for the reason why. In that moment, she had forgotten the Führer even had a son. She had forgotten his interest in journalism.

“Maes, for God’s sake,” Roy said, keeping his voice down, despite feeling eyes on his back anyway. “I told you they said they didn’t want to talk.”

“I know you did, and I really tried fighting my editor on that,” Maes responded, matching his tone of voice. “I really did. But he insisted. You know as well as I do, I’m the only reporter you talk to and that’s just because you’re my dad. They know this. They take advantage of it. But they want to hear something from _them._ They don’t think you’d be a good source from that kind of perspective. They’re using your quote about the investigation, but that’s it. They want to hear more emotion.”

“I have them going under different names, Maes,” he hissed softly. He was right. Max and Liesel, respectively. “I can’t protect them if their pictures and names are being plastered everywhere.”

“I’ll change their names in the article and deny pictures. I can convince my editor of that,” Maes said to retaliate. “I can also put in they’re staying in foster care with a trusted family friend. That’s not a lie, but it’s not saying it’s you.”

The Führer just sighs, turning back to where he feels the pair of eyes and notices the girl completely avoiding her breakfast to watch. As if she’s eaten anything to begin with, really. It’s funny, when she was a child, she would always fight her mother about the food on her plate. She’d eat the plate and push away her milk (“I hate it,” is her reasoning). Now she pushes her plate. Now she drinks her milk.

“Izzy,” Roy sighs, gesturing to the stairs. “Can you please go get your brother?”

She stares for a moment, then she silently hovers from her seat and up the stairs. Even when her brother wakes, she helps him change his bandages. Still, she does not say a thing. Even when she helps him walk to the dining room table, despite brief arguing between him and the Führer and Maes, she does not speak a word. Even when she sits right across that table and is very delicately asked two questions, she does not so much as flinch by her mouth.

Maes is careful in his interview, making sure to mention over and over to her that she can share only what she’s comfortable with, but he does not obtain a quote. He does notice, however, that through the fire in her glare a permanent glaze of tears extinguishes it on the surface of her eyes.

“Has she said anything since she’s been here?” Maes asks, quietly, noticing that particular look in her eyes. His father just shakes his head.

“Not a word.”

There’s a moment, before he glances at Marcus standing right behind her, who had finished his _extremely_ brief interview with the reporter just a couple minutes prior (“Look pal,” he said after the second question. “I know this is your job and the way it works is the quicker the better, but can you at least give me a fucking week?”).

“Has she communicated at all?”

Marcus carefully rests his hands on Isabelle’s shoulders, careful on her bandage. His stance protective and bold, despite his own obvious injury. “I think it’s best you wrap up what you’re doing.” His tone is stern, and not once faltering. “You’re welcome to have some breakfast cousin to cousin, but this interview is over.”

And it was over. Still, Isabelle Elric does not speak of anything.

When she looks over at the door each morning when she wakes up, she does not hear a breeze. There is no silent sound of rustling trees, there is no fresh air to breathe. Instead, she is woken in the middle of the night by sirens, she is laid back to rest by the sound of cars passing by. She breathes oxygen with a hint of smoked cigarettes and gasoline.

It’s in this week when Isabelle Elric wishes, just once, that she would live in that quiet life once more.

 

* * *

 

She and her brother hold a schedule each morning so that by the evening they’re back home with a finished routine. For the past month each sibling was assigned a corresponding guardian – Marcus being guided along with Lieutenant Riza while Isabelle was practically attached to the Führer’s side himself. They are not to deter from their guardians. They don’t even try.

Isabelle doesn’t know much of Marcus’s personal schedule except when he decides to share what happened in his day. However, now that he’s decent enough to be walking around on his own and even some work, he’s looking into keeping his mind busy with what helps him sleep soundly every night: tinkering.

It took some looking, but the General was able to leave a message to the Führer about a new branch of the Mechanics Department in the military – something that specialises in new technology and machinery. They work out an apprenticeship, and so Marcus’s schedule completely shifts around and he’s able to start distracting himself with new possibilities.

Isabelle’s schedule remains the exact same.

They were taught how to fight. They were taught how to use a firearm. They were taught how to hide in plain sight and to memorise every single detail about their fake identities.

Liesel Meminger is fourteen years old, born on September 27th, her family put her up for adoption after not being able to afford basic care for their little girl. At first, with Isabelle’s still complete silence the Führer debated on pretending she’s deaf, but decided otherwise because it could easily be disproved. Extremely shy, then. That is all.

He still works on trying to get Isabelle to talk, but she practically refuses to say anything. She acknowledges, but it seems any need nor desire to speak is completely gone – her voice ripped entirely from her throat. The Führer talks for her, and he still tries to include her in conversation, but no words come out. To the world she just stays Liesel, and it seems only her brother chooses to let her take her time.

Max Vanderburg is pushing eighteen, born on the 5th of early August, with his story being that he’s just a runaway looking for a place to stay – he didn’t want to live in a home where he would be forced into marriage at an early age, so he left to see the world. Riza made sure to take Marcus to a few places far from Central in particular so he can perfectly describe the locations he’s been, and he decided that the big city was right for him.

The Führer found them both a week apart, is how their story typically ends.

Marcus has to admit, he misses his sister’s voice. He misses the light carried on in her eyes while she’d perform basic activities, he misses the complete joy of life she brought with her entire being. It seemed to have died the moment Roy Mustang found her lying in the middle of the road, coughing out mud and rain.

But he’s patient with her. He’ll just talk with her, letting the silence fill in the blank where he can almost feel what she wants to say next. Some days, he can see her wanting to try, but giving up the moment she remembers why her voice was even snatched away.

One night he remembers being pulled aside, the Führer asking him if she’s made any progress.

“Same old same old,” he had said simply, looking back into the kitchen and sighing. “I’ve never seen her look so broken.”

Roy gave him a look, raising an eyebrow slightly and glancing over at the girl standing by the sink, absentmindedly washing a plate as she stared out the window into the maze of windows and trees. “Broken,” he repeated quietly. “Is that what you think?” When Marcus shrugged, he just smirked slightly. “No. Look carefully. She’s just like her father. There’s nothing in there that’s broken. There is _fire_ in her eyes.”

Dim.

One morning the Führer wakes her early, telling her to get dressed and put her coat and shoes on. It’s starting to snow at this point of mid-November, yet the wind chill gives Central City the feeling of February. At this point of the year in her old home, she would wake up to the chills that creep into her bedroom. Now, she isn’t in a rickety old home anymore.

There is no wind.

She doesn’t question his commands – assuming he was summoned somewhere and he’s taking her to see it since she can’t be left alone. _Shouldn’t_ be left alone. She carries herself in a regular outfit tinted with shades of brown, except for her jacket, which beams a bright red. At first when she was placed into hiding, the Führer had told her not to wear the colour as it makes her stick out (“that’s the last thing you want,” he had said), but she just looked him in the eye and buttoned up the jacket all the way to her neck. He didn’t fight her on it since then.

Isabelle meets him by the front door, her silent eyes asking him where they’re going. Work, if she had to guess, but it’s better if he explains things to her instead of leaving her in the dark. Despite her never saying a word, he’s patient enough to keep her in the loop with everything going on. He keeps her informed, and in turn she listens to him, but she still does not speak.

“Apparently,” he says simply, guiding her outside as he locks the door behind him. They make their way to his car – the Führer making sure she’s seated first before he walks to the other side, a subtle gesture Isabelle picked up on when he did it the second time – and he begins to take her where they need to go. “There was a freak murder last night on Sixth Street. Normally Investigations takes care of it on their own, but they think it’s something related to what you’ve seen with the Elric Case.”

The atmosphere suddenly shifts cold. Isabelle’s eyes harden, and she looks like she’s _almost_ about to say something, but again, no words. No voice. She just purses together her lips, and glares forward. She watches the snow fly into the air around her as the vehicle keeps up its speed, and she just has to take a deep breath. Breathe and wait.

When they arrive there’s a small team from Investigations waiting for them there, the body covered with a black cloth. The moment they see her, one of the members bends down, taking something from underneath the cloth and standing back up, turning the photograph over to the child. It’s some kind of insignia. Isabelle want to say she’s seen it somewhere before.

“We think this person was connected with the people that took your family. Do you remember seeing this?”

Isabelle stares at the photo for a moment, trying to wrack her brain and look for any kind of sign or logo similar, but all she remembers at this point is just smoke and the smell of blood. She shakes her head, giving it back with a sorrowful look in her eye.

“Do you think your brother may remember seeing something like this?”

She shrugs. It’s worth a shot to ask and see. They make a note to visit Marcus at his apprenticeship in the Mechanics Department once they’re finished with the scene. Someone arrives with a telephone, requesting the Führer. He holds his arm out when he takes it, beckoning Isabelle to stick by his side. She listens.

She stands there for a few moments, ignoring the words the Führer is saying as her eyes remain fixated on the body underneath black sheets. She wonders, had it taken just a little longer, if her brother would have been beneath the same shades and buried with Earth between. She feels a pair of eyes on her neck, and slowly, her gaze turns to match the distance.

And suddenly, her throat flips with a _lurch._

Her eyes remained locked there, engaged, completely and undeniably frightened while still determined to make a scene. She reaches her arm back, trying to grab at the Führer, but no cloth of limb of any kind lands in her grasp. She hears her uncle in her mind. A simple voice. He’s telling her to fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. _Fight._ Her bottom lip trembles, her heart thudding with each breath as air starts to push itself out of her throat, carrying sound. On its own, it sounds like a dying animal trying to scream for mercy, a pitiful creature caught stuck in its own creation. Then, it starts to become coherent.

“Sir,” she pleads, her eyes not once turning away. She doesn’t even know if she blinked. Her voice is harsh. Hollow. Everything caught somewhere between a decade-long chain-smoker and a whimpering wheeze of a dog could be used to describe her voice. It’s so quiet. Inaudible, practically. It’s almost as if she’s holding her breath as she says it, the words locked somewhere in her neck as she struggles to even say “please.”

“Führer Mustang,” she tries again, her gasping sighs caught with the wind and blown into a different direction, her fingers still not falling somewhere she can reach. “ _Roy._ ”

She swallows hard. Her lips cracking and dry with neglect and underuse as she tries to push more air into her lungs and force out volume for her voice. Isabelle brings her hand down, reaching into her pockets to see what she has. A knife. A broken piece of chalk. Something she can use to her advantage.

Her legs move without her permission, her arm retracting from her pocket with her pocketknife in her hand that she doesn’t hesitate to flip open. She doesn’t realise how close she gets. She doesn’t realise that before the Führer calls her name she’s about to walk into her own slaughter. But she pauses. She turns back. He’s moving towards her now. She has to rush.

Her eyes face forward again, and suddenly the man in her view is turning a corner to escape in a new direction. Her voice leaps, and she _runs_.

The insignias. They match. That man. _He shot Marcus._

Her pace picks up, her mind running as fast as she is to reinforce this image of the near-murder. She remembers the smoke. She remembers the blood. She remembers crying for her brother’s life and she remembers _him_ being involved with it all run, run, run, _run!_

She doesn’t hear the Führer’s voice now yelling behind her, her blade remaining outwards as she sprints across streets and alleyways, and she’s running, running, running _running_ —

“—Give them back to me!” She screams now, not even caring about the attention she’s drawing. He runs into a crowd. She follows right after him. She pushes her way through the sea of bodies and people glaring at her for behaving in such a way. She loses the back of his head. “Give me back my family!”

Isabelle stumbles out of the crowd, finding the man hunched over and looking at the fruit on a kart of baskets, as if he’s trying to blend in with the outside world. “Hey!” She shouts to him, kicking him behind his legs and grabbing him by his hair, holding the knife up to his throat. “Where are my—”

She stops, the man she holds suddenly carries a different face. The more she looks at him, the more she realises that his clothes aren’t the same. There is no insignia. Through the man’s suddenly constant crying (“What did I do? Please don’t kill me, please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything wrong!”) she sees that she’s been tricked. There is no one around to blame. He’s gone, left behind in a trail of smoke, just like the game of alkahestry on that day.

“You’re not…” her voice falls quiet again, letting go of the civilian she had taken and putting her knife away. “I’m sorry.”

“L- _Izzy!_ ” A voice yells from behind her, a focus on the L sound to make a new name, but a prominent pronunciation of her nickname. She turns, watching the Führer march up to her with a look mixed between confused and angry. “What the hell were you doing?”

She freezes, glancing back at the man behind her before her voice is forced again, her tone nothing lighter than shaking tremble. “There wa—he was—the pic—he escaped,” she swallows hard, collecting her words, the only thing she can repeat clearly at this point is “I’m sorry.”

The Führer pauses, taking a moment to process the fact that this little girl is, in fact, _talking_ to him. Isabelle Elric, the girl who lost her voice over a month ago, finally could string together sound. A voice has returned. Progress is being made.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, holding a hand out to her now. “Let’s get you home.”

Isabelle finds that she can speak easier there. Her brother and the Lieutenant aren’t home – off on their schedule – and so her only audience at this moment remains the Führer. Sometimes, the greatest things that Roy Mustang has ever done is remain completely silent. He listens to her, completely, paying careful attention to every tiny detail in her story and everything she had to say about the incident that took her family. When she reveals that the man she was chasing had escaped, she stops there, and it takes a second for him to process everything she said. It makes sense.

They sit in silence for a moment, across the dining room table, with Isabelle practically shrinking herself in her seat and staring at the edge of the table in front of her, while the Führer is leaning back, crossing his arms and legs, his eyes fixated on the empty chair right next to him. The air is full of thought. Weight.

She remembers something. Her eyes float up, taking a moment to debate on drawing away the Führer’s eyes with her own request, but she decides that she might as well get it out of the way. She can persist on it later if she must.

“I want to be a State Alchemist,” Isabelle says bluntly.

The scoff that comes out of Mustang’s mouth almost seems unintentional – the tone mixed. “Fuck that,” he says.

“I’m serious,” she says.

“I know you are,” the Führer replies, turning his head and paying attention to her, the rest of his body remaining in place. “So am I. You’re not getting involved with that mess.”

She scrunches her face, with her lips curving downwards in a pout and her eyebrows crinkled in concentration. “I want to help on the Elric Case investigation. Considering it’s _my_ family.”

“And I can understand that,” he uncrosses his body and leans forward across the table. “But I’m not giving you a pocket watch.” He thinks on it for a moment, then he asks her a question. “Is the investigation on the Elric Case the only reason why you want to join?”

“It wasn’t when I was thirteen, but now it is,” Isabelle admits.

The Führer nods, toying with an idea. He looks at her in the eye. “Just for the case?” He asks for clarification. She nods. He inhales sharply, wondering what could and couldn’t work in this case, but then he remembers that he’s the damn leader of this whole country. This decision wouldn’t even be a severe power move – just something people would accept. “I’ll compromise with you,” he says. He has her attention. “I’ll put you on the case, but you won’t be a State Alchemist. You’ll have access to all the information the Investigations Department has and you can communicate with them regularly and you can work through the information if you so choose. But apart from that, you’re staying in my office, you’re not going into the military. Is that a deal?”

Isabelle has to think for a couple seconds. “I thought I can’t be involved in investigations unless I’m military certified.”

“Don’t push it.”

She just shrugs. “I can live with that.”

It’s settled then.

She remembers Alphonse’s voice to her. She remembers to keep finding something to fight for. She takes a deep breath, and the sky seems to open, peeling away the scorching weight of the sun off her shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to be writing the next chapter of Shattered Courage but this fic won’t leave me alone so…yeah. There’s that. I was getting really bumpy until I got to the scene with Isabelle’s voice coming back and the chase, and it literally just flowed right out of me after that. Regardless, I’m excited where this is going, I finished my outline so this is going to be interesting, I hope! Once again you can find me under my tumblr at elenastidham (or minuetofthewild if you’re a big Zelda nerd, check out my Zelda fics if that’s the case), and thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.   
> -Elena


End file.
